A perfectly cooked mutton curry can send the non-vegetarian foodie into a tizzy

If dal is the arbitrator of taste when it comes to vegetarian cooking in India, for diehard carnivores, a fine meal is defined, more often than not, by the quality of mutton curry served up. At least that's true for me. And I know of several foodies who invariably judge the deftness of the cook from the mutton curries he turns out.

Of course, what we dub "mutton curry" is hardly a generic dish. It has the makings of a sublime at-home lunch, to be scooped up with thinly rolled rotis or mixed with hot rice. Or, it can be elevated to a special-occasion, festive dish that you invariably sweat over; sincerely stirring the mutton and onions, judiciously adding spices, and simmering the curry for long hours to just rewards.

There is similarly a note of reverence when Bengali friends talk about spending the better part of a Sunday perfecting their kosha mangsho - though, of course, the rest of the day may then be spent on debating whether it was quite the right recipe after all!

I asked chef Sharad Dewan of The Park in Kolkata for his version and am listing out the finer points with some trepidation: heat mustard oil in a pan, add some bay leaves, cloves and cardamom. When they splutter, add onions and saute till brown, add ginger-garlic paste, saute, add turmeric, red chilli and zeera powders.

If you look at the basic preparation, this is pretty much how any mutton curry is cooked. But unlike "Western" food, defined by a single dominant ingredient or cooking style, Indian cuisines are distinct because of the use of different spices and souring agents. Kosha mangsho, rogan josh, laal maans, the bhuna or ishtew of old Delhi, Kohlapuri mutton et al are thus the same generic dish but each tastes different (or ought to) because of the subtle variation in masalas.

Mughal Origins On the fringes of the Jaipur Lit Fest this year, I had the most bastardised, catering-to-tourists laal maans ever. The red chillies had been reduced and tomatoes woefully added rendering the recipe unrecognisable.

Yoghurt is the rightful souring agent here and red chillies (lots of them; a conservative recipe lists 6 tsp of red chilli powder for every kg of mutton that should be cooked in almost 300 ml of ghee or oil) the distinguishing spice - say, unlike in rogan josh, where, despite the red colour, which comes from mild Kashmiri red chillies or cockscomb flower, the curry is not really that hot.

The technique of cooking or searing meats in ghee over low heat for a long time is essentially Mughal. However, regional or community-specific Indian kitchens played around with local spices to give us so many versions of the mutton curry (as also other dishes).

Two recipes from old Delhi make for interesting study; not the least because they show up both the otherness of different community kitchens in close proximity but also the reality of albeit reluctant cultural amalgamation: the aloo-gosht salan of Muslim homes is really a simple mutton curry-with-potatoes. But instead of sweating onions first to make the masala as is the basic step for most preparations, onions are browned and blended with yoghurt and added to the curry only at a later stage, to give a rich texture.

The Mughal-inspired ishtew (because meat cooks in its own juices) sometimes goes by the name of khade masale ka bhuna gosht in Kayastha kitchens. Both recipes are the same - a one-pot dish where you bung in meat, whole spices, onions and curd and let them cook on slow fire till the meat is well done.

The other Persian-meets-local cuisine of the Subcontinent, of course, is Parsi. Mumbai-based caterer Kaizad Patel gives me a recipe for the jardaloo salli boti, possibly the most famous slow-cooked Parsi dish. After spluttering whole spices in oil, add onions, boneless meat and tomatoes like you would for any curry. Then add a puree of stewed apricots and some Parsi sambhar masala. A dash of sugarcane vinegar at the end gives it the sweet-sourness associated with the cuisine.

Tingling Tastebuds One dish that invariably gets foodies salivating, yet that is incredibly hard to authenticate (there are so many versions floating about) is Kohlapuri mutton. Once again, the spices are distinctive.

I asked chef Manish Mehrotra of Old World Hospitality, who is quite a champion of Maharashtrian food, for his take and he gave me a detailed list of spices for the Kohlapuri masala: apart from red chilli powder (50 g) and dry coconut (25 g), these include coriander seeds (10 g), 1 tsp each of sesame, poppy, cumin seeds and tiny quantities of black pepper, mace, asafoetida, cinnamon, cassia bud, turmeric, ginger, green and black cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, dagadh phool, fenugreek and mustard seeds.

Phew. The spices need to be dry roasted, ground and mixed with a paste of fresh ginger-garlic-green coriander. Else, find a readymade mix.

But above all, the mutton curry both separates and unites us.

MEAT BELIRAM

Beliram was ostensibly a famous cook in Lahore during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh turning out a sublime meat curry. Though there are various claimants to the legacy, a recipe researched by Jiggs Kalra and as prepared at Singh Sahib, is a great version.